Many personal computing applications, such as word processors, spreadsheets and Web browsers, are designed to process and display large data files, such as textual documents, while allowing only a portion of the data to be displayed on the screen at any one time. The computing applications allow a user to change the currently displayed data, by moving backwards, forwards, right or left through the data, whether the text of a document, or the data contained in a spreadsheet. A variety of methods are available for moving through a file, including moving an on-screen cursor using arrow buttons; clicking with a mouse on a scroll bar; and by pressing buttons on a keyboard, such as Page Up and Page Down keys.
Typically, after reading the last line of text displayed on a screen in a word processing document, a reader presses the Page Down button, or clicks on the scrollbar below the box, to display the following portion of text. These actions typically cause the text displayed on the screen to be updated, with the last line of on-screen text shifted to become either the first or second line of text on the screen. Updating the screen typically occurs virtually instantaneously, which causes a reader to lose visual connection with the (formerly) last line of text after it has been shifted. A reader thus has to locate the new, shifted position of the line of text and refocus on it, each time he uses a Page Down function. When reading long documents, the time lost finding and refocusing on lines of data becomes significant, and detracts from the convenience and ease-of-use of the computing application.
There is thus a need in the art for apparatus and a method for improving the ease-of-use of scrolling functions on a personal computing application.